Muckers (23 page)

“Welcome to the jungle,” Manny says.

“Don’t get used to it,” Cruz says when he reaches me.

“I won’t.”

“Time for target practice.” Manny points to me as Diaz and Quesada make it down. “The rest of you guys start heading back up.”

Manny’s lined up ten footballs on the rocky floor about forty feet from the shovel and the rail track it’s mounted on. “That’s how Coach Hansen got Bobby ready for Flagstaff,” Manny explains, looking up at the dipper stick of the bucket. “Shovel precision. Nothing like it to get your throws higher and away from those Warrior fingers.

“You’ve got ten shots and thirty seconds to hit the bucket where I put it,” Manny says, tossing me the first ball. “I can still throw, you know, even if I’m missing a few fingers. Your body adjusts. Sometimes faster than anything else does.”

The rest of the shovel crew gathers around me, pointing their carbide lamps at the shovel as Manny climbs up to the
controls. I focus on the mouth of the bucket, thirty feet up, and its row of bottom teeth. I can see the arc of its swing in my head and shoot for where I think it’ll go, and I connect on the first try. The miners clap and start yelling, “Do it again,” and I do—over and over—just like I did with those ducks at the fiesta. Then the shovel rotates and lurches low to the ground and I hit the boom instead, so Manny bobs it up and to the short side. I nick both the dipper stick and the bucket.

Manny puts up his eight fingers. “Eight out of ten. Not bad, Red.”

I look back and Tony’s putting Melvin on his shoulders. “For balance,” Tony says, laughing, as he turns to go back up. “What you got, rocks in your pocket?” Tony asks him.

“I gained twelve pounds since the season started,” Melvin says. “I guess all that fighting with the bus helps.”

“Tuffy’s still timing you,” Manny tells me. “Better get back up there.”

The rest of the miners collect at the base of the ledge and shine their lamps along the path to help me see—their eyes hungry for what they believe I can do. I start racing toward the sky, away from the burning ore and out of this box, ignoring the sting in my own body, the sweaty ribbons of sulfur smoke whirling all around me. I pass Tony, and Melvin waves, but I focus on the faces of those miners, coated in soot and hopeful, and on how Bobby must have done the same thing, racing up these ledges and feeling the need like I do right now, wanting to make them feel puffed up and proud.

“Six minutes and nine seconds,” Tuffy tells me when I get back up to the field.

“You’re bleeding again,” I tell Cruz.

“Bleeding’s good.”

Tony drops off Melvin next to Tuffy.

“You’ll be doing the same drill twice more,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “Saturday and Monday at midnight. That should make you good and ready to take on Flagstaff.”

“How’d you get permission from Ruffner to stop a shift from running for an hour in the first place?” I ask.

“I didn’t get permission from William Ruffner,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “I got it from your father.”

WE COULD SURE USE RAIN
, it’s been so dusty around here. Every time I shoot the football through that tire and it lands on home plate, it churns up a dust storm and I have to wait for the clouds to settle before throwing again. I know it’s too early for anyone to be at the school except Charlie, but I can see the sidewalk from here, and Mr. Mackenzie should be walking across it anytime now. I’m hoping he’ll know something more about Coach.

It only takes two more throws before I hear Mr. Mac as he comes around the corner in his pin-striped suit. He sees me right off and walks over, saying “Good morning,” dropping his cane in the coldenia behind the fence, and lifting up the tire to forty-five degrees. I’m trying to figure out if the “good morning” is really a good morning like things are going well, or if it’s a good morning like you have to grin and bear it because if you don’t, you just might start welling up not knowing if the tears will stop when you want them to.

“Any news about Coach?” I ask, hurling the ball through the tire. It goes through without skimming the sides and Mr. Mac looks pleased.

“You’re looking much stronger, Felix, just in time for the game with Flagstaff. Looks like all that ledge work helped.”

“That and Faye Miller bringing me all those casseroles.”

He nods and holds the tire up a notch higher.

“I’ve seen her little boy,” I say. “It’s good she … kept going. With her life, I mean. Got married. Do you know her husband?”

Mr. Mackenzie lowers the tire and scoops up the football. “No, I don’t, Felix. But her son, Samuel, he’s really taking to the school and he sure loves football.” He tosses the ball back and I aim for the tire again.

“I remember the first time Ben Hansen saw this town and this tire,” Mr. Mackenzie says. “He asked if we were supposing there’d be a flood and we’d all hang on to that tire and go swinging over the baseball field. I brought him here, you know. When nobody thought the T formation would work or a coach from the Midwest for that matter. And you know what? He loved it here. ‘This is home, Edward,’ he told me after only a year.” Mr. Mac holds the tire up higher and I rocket it through again easy, then wait for him to collect the ball.

“Is the hospital letting him take visitors yet, I mean … other than his family?” I ask.

Mr. Mac puts his hands in his pockets, then kicks up some dust with his wingtip. “There’s a good chance we’re gonna lose him, Felix. And if we do, it will be a sad day.”

My heart and my mind go racing for the right words but they won’t come.

All I hear is Mr. Mac saying how he knows how fond I
am of Coach and that he and Coach are friends—just like me and Cruz—and I don’t know what I’d do if Cruz was in that Cottonville hospital right now with nearly no shot at making it.

“Everybody thinks a coach just wants to win for himself and some people think that about Ben Hansen, too, he’s so driven,” Mr. Mac says. “But that’s never been why Ben does all this. You know what he told me just last week? He said, ‘Isn’t it funny how they’ve saved me the best team for last? We’re gonna take it, Edward—the state championship. You know what that would mean to the boys if they won it? How different they’d feel for the rest of their lives? That’s what I can see for them. I can taste it, Ed. That Yavapai Cup trophy’s been earmarked for them.’ ”

SPORTS CENTRAL

Phoenix-Flagstaff Gridiron Showdown Expected

The reigning state football champions, the Phoenix United Coyotes, are one victory away from getting a chance to defend their title. The undefeated Coyotes host Mesa on Saturday in what is expected to be a rout.

In the North, Flagstaff seems certain to take it all, with only a scrappy but undersized Hatley team standing in their way. Those two face off in Flagstaff tonight. The likely Phoenix-Flagstaff state championship game would be Oct. 21 in Flagstaff.

“We’re not looking past anyone,” said P.U.
coach Pug Johnson, who admitted that his players have been studying film of Flagstaff’s most recent games. “We beat Mesa by 35 points last year, so we’re confident. And Hatley’s the smallest team in the state, so don’t expect much from them.”

THE LAST TIME A MUCKER
team beat Flagstaff, Bobby was quarterback with Manny his top receiver, and every lineman on that ’41 squad as big as Tony.

We’ve held the Warriors scoreless for half a game instead of letting them run roughshod over us like the papers predicted. It’s been a physical game and not very clean—two unnecessary-roughness penalties against Flagstaff and one on us. Cruz let his temper gallop onto the field again and hit a receiver about five yards out-of-bounds. But none of that is the same as beating them—we haven’t scored yet either.

But we’ve run the ledges, same as Bobby’s team, and Mr. Mackenzie says we’re faster than they were. Manny does, too. They both drove up to watch us play. Zolnich isn’t allowed to leave town or he’d have been here, too. And if the mine wasn’t closing, we’d have a whole lot more people rooting for us under these pines. Must be at least three thousand Warrior fans in the stadium, which is the biggest we’ve played in
all year. Most of them are dressed in Warrior colors—green and white—like Christmas candy.

We’re sitting in the locker room—which is the size of our auditorium—waiting for Wallinger. He’s been in the john for the entire halftime, he’s so nervous. The folding chairs are cold as icicles and start vibrating with the sound of those Warrior cheers, so I get up, clench a fist, and punch it into my palm.

“Wonder what Coach Hansen would tell us right about now?” Lupe says.

Cruz lifts my throwing arm up high. “He’d say that we’ve got the O’Sullivan magic! Isn’t that what Coach told us when we first started this season?”

“And that we’re Muckers,” Tony says.

“What do Muckers do?” I start chanting. “Muckers fight!”

“No matter what pit you’re in,” Cruz adds.

“Remember the ledges?” I tell them. “All that running up and down?” I start pounding on the seat of a chair. “Flag kept bringing in subs the first half, but they couldn’t wear us down. The second half belongs to us.”

Wallinger finally comes out of the john with a cap on like Coach Hansen’s and barks, “Let’s get out there and win.” But there’s no way he could ever be like Coach, or we could be like Bobby’s team—we’ve got to be even better.

* * *

“We’re throwing the ball this half,” I say to Cruz. “Get open.”

He slips past his defender and I send him a long, high pass on the first play, like I was aiming for the bucket of that shovel. I get hammered to the ground, but by the time I get to my feet Cruz is all the way to the ten-yard line. Next play I find him in the end zone, and we’re up 6–0.

The passing seems to loosen up their side, too. Flagstaff marches right down the field in about six plays and takes the lead, 7–6.

I get sacked on our next possession, then take a vicious hit on an incomplete pass. My nose smashes against the turf and the lights blind me for a second when I turn, making me think about Coach. “The lowly Muckers”—isn’t that what he’d told me?—“against the mighty Warriors …” I catch a whiff of the grass and shake my head clear.

“No penalty?” I ask the ref. “He hit me five seconds after I threw it!”

The referee just shakes his head. The Flagstaff tackle—built like the ponderosas lining the stadium—points a finger at me. “Get used to it,” he says.

Early in the fourth quarter I find Cruz with a bullet in the center of the field. He breaks a tackle and crosses midfield before they bring him down.

As we huddle up, I see Cruz’s forehead is starting to bleed again. But at least six of us are bleeding, so who cares? I’ve got a cut above my thumb and a gash on my shin.

“They’re winded,” Cruz says. “Keep up the pressure!”

I hand off to Lupe, but he’s stopped before he reaches the line. I pitch to Cruz for an end-around, but they maul him after two yards. And then I throw an incompletion with too much pressure from their line.

Fourth down. Wallinger is signaling for us to punt. I ignore him.

“Tony, Alonzo, hold the line!” I say. I call another pass play and stare straight at Cruz. He scowls and says, “Just get me the ball.”

But Cruz is covered tight and our guys can only hold the line so long. I scramble toward the sideline, then Lupe
throws a block—it’s beautiful, and one that Coach Hansen would be proud of. I’ve got daylight ahead. I streak down the sideline with everything I’ve got, and Cruz comes out of nowhere to cut down their safety and set me free to score. I hit the twenty then the ten and keep going for the longest run of my life—forty-six yards—and suddenly we’re back on top.

They block Quesada’s extra-point attempt, but we’ve got the lead and the momentum. It’s 12–7.

Flag starts rolling up the yardage after the kickoff. Nothing big, just a steady stream of four-, five-, six-yard runs up the middle. Alonzo is wearing down. Lupe drops to one knee and stares at the sky between plays. Cruz curses under his breath.

Their size is getting to us. “Remember the ledges!” I yell.

The clock is ticking down and we might never get the ball back. All Flagstaff needs is a touchdown to win the crown.

They’re at our seven-yard line and the quarterback is barking signals. I inch toward the line, expecting another running play, but he drops back to pass.

Their receiver has a step on me and he’s sprinting toward the end zone. I hear a crash in the backfield and look over. Tony’s broken through the line and laid out the quarterback. The ball pops loose. Players from both sides dive for it and I can’t tell who recovers.

Alonzo leaps up from the pile, holding the pigskin. I shake my fist and race toward him, smacking him on the back.